For nearly eight years the Gulf drug cartel, one of Mexico’s largest drug cartels, has employed the services of former Mexican special forces in its battle against the Sinaloa cartel. Known as the Zetas, these former anti-narcotics commandos have undergone extensive training in the United States, Israel and Colombia and were formed to eliminate those cartels they now assist for substantial financial rewards.
Since the arrest of former Gulf cartel leader and original Zetas recruiter, Osiel Cardenas, the Zetas have sought to establish their own smuggling routes into the US and are directly challenging the supremacy of both the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.
The Zetas are quickly expanding traditional drug smuggling routes into the US and are seeking control of Mexico-US border city transit points, establishing bases of operation in Ciudad Juarez, a former Juarez cartel stronghold, Acapulco, Monterrey and Veracruz. In the process the Zetas have perpetrated hundreds of brutal murders of rival cartel members and both local and federal security forces that attempt to hinder their activities.
Originally numbering some 200 and concentrating their operations in Tamaulipas state, the Zetas have expanded to over 2,000 members in under two years and have expanded their operations to 24 states, including Nuevo León, Tabasco, Veracruz, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua and even Mexico City.
Zetas Modus Operandi
The groups modus operandi within their expanding operational network has not changed significantly since its expansion into these states – namely, it seeks to exert total control over drug smuggling routes into the US, via the US-Mexico border, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, using high-powered weapons, and exhibiting the discipline associated with military personnel.
Evidence of the group’s military background was exemplified in May 2005 when US Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector of Arizona came under heavy assault from suspected Zetas members. According to US government officials, the assault team wore “black commando-type clothing, used high-powered weapons and hand-held radios to point out the agents’ location, and withdrew from the area using military-style cover and concealment tactics to escape back into Mexico.” US investigators later found “sophisticated equipment” at the site as well.
Zetas Activities in the US
As we previously reported in 2005, the Zetas have established bases in the US, specifically in Dallas, Texas. There, they are suspected in three drug-related killings and are believed to have ten assassins on call to protect coveted drug shipments, totaling transactions of some US $10 million per day. The Department of Justice said in March 2005 that the Zetas participated “in multiple assaults and are believed to have hired criminal gangs” for contract killings. They may have already spread into Florida, Arizona, and California as well for the same protection rackets, and officials in those states have been warned to be watching for Zeta members.
Power grabs for key smuggling routes into the US, particularly the prized Interstate 35 route that begins across the border from Nuevo Laredo is largely responsible for the Mexico’s meteoric rise in homicides. In 2005, approximately 1,600 murders were linked to rug related disputes, 2,200 in 2006 and more than 1,200 so far in 2007. However, cartels are no longer just vying for control of the US drug market but are also seeking prominence over distribution territory in Mexico. Within the last year, Mexico’s drug consumption market has expanded some 20 percent.
Zetas Extortion Rackets
The Zetas have also begun to expand their illicit enterprises, creating large extortion rackets that have forced the closure of some 26 casinos in 11 Mexican states. As reported by the Mexico City newspaper El Universal, casinos in the states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Baja California were robbed last week in well-coordinated and executed attacks that are designed to pressure casino owners into providing a sizable portion of the casino’s earnings to Zeta leadership.
Calderon’s Anti-Narcotics Operations
Since winning the Mexican presidential election in 2006, Felipe Calderon has committed the Mexican military to battling Mexican drug cartels, deploying some 30,000 troops to several states, including Michoacan, Guerrero, Tabasco, and the cities of Tijuana and Monterrey.
In addition Calderon has pursued reform within both the state and federal police forces, seeking the merger of the Federal Preventive Police, which is currently operating under the direction of the public-security ministry, and the Federal Agency of Investigation, which is part of the attorney general’s office. However, these reform measures remain stalled in Congress, where members from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have objected to the legislation’s lack of checks and balances.
In response to increase military activities directed against cartel operations, the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, in addition to the Zetas, have dispersed their smuggling operations, seeking alternative routes and alternative production centers. Consequently, cities and states historically immune from drug related violence such as the port city of Veracruz and Mexico City have reported a measurable increase in drug related crime. We anticipate the continued growth of cartel operations in cities located away from the Mexican-US border, particularly Mexican cities with port facilities, to include Acapulco and Veracruz.
Mexican populace support levels for current military deployment will remain high throughout 2007 (some 81 percent of Mexicans agree with Calderon’s anti-narcotic military operations), however, the continued lack of progress and expansion of drug cartel operations into previously immune Mexican cities will gradually erode public support for Calderon’s anti-narcotics program.
